The Great Chicago Fire, Described in Seven Letters by Men and Women

®mn . iFaiB The uman Account as descriDecUpp^e-witnesses in seven r i []!. letters written by men and women who experienced its terrors With PAUL M. ANGLE $3.00 THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE ******** Here is the Great Chicago Fire of 1871— the catastrophe which, in little more than twenty-four hours, took 300 lives, left 90,000 people homeless, and destroyed property worth $200,000,000—described in letters written by men and women who lived through it. Written during the Fire and immedi- ately afterward, these artless letters convey the terrors of the moment—flame-swept streets, anguished crowds, buildings that melted in minutes—with a vividness that no reader can forget. There may be more scholarly, more comprehensive accounts of Chicago's Great Fire, but none approaches this in realism that is almost photographic. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Paul M. Angle, Director, The Chicago Historical Society. Published by the Society in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Fire. THE GREAT CHICAGO EIRE m '' "-. ' . '' ifi::-;5?jr:::^:; '-; .] .'."' : "' ;; :"". .:' -..;:,;'.:, 7: LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/greatchicagofireOOangl "=VI The Great Chicago Fire decorated by Joseph Trautwein fgqis (cm3(CA<a(D DESCRIBED IN SEVEN LETTERS BY MEN AND WOMEN WHO EXPERIENCED ITS HORRORS, AND NOW PUBLISHED IN COM- MEMORATION OF THE SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CATASTROPHE Introduction and Notes by Paul M. Angle THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY Chicago, Illinois * J 94 6 COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY Distributed by Valentine — Newman, Publishers CHICAGO, ILLINOIS /k FOREWORD The great Chicago fire of 1871 was the most spectacular event in the city's history. It became a livid scar of memory for those who experienced it; even today it is the one episode of a great city's manifold past that the youngest schoolchild is certain to know. And even today, though seventy- five years have passed, it points morals. Its story continues to warn that only the narrowest margin separates man from nature, and that nature, ordi- narily kindly, may be implacably destructive. It is also proof of man's ability, given faith, courage, and determination, to surmount even the greatest catastrophe. 1 1 CONTENTS Introduction LETTER i: Jonas Hutchinson n LETTER II: Mary Vales 25 LETTER in: George Howland 33 LETTER IV: Aurelia R. King 31 LETTER v: Anna E. Higginson 47 LETTER vi: Adeline Rossiter Judd 57 LETTER VII: Samuel Stone 7^ Conclusion Si Chicago Historical Society S3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The O'Leary Cottage After the Fire 19 The Heart of Chicago 21 Proclamation, October 9, 1871 23 Randolph Street Ruins 27 The Courthouse Before the Fire 30 To the People of Rock Island, October 10, 187 34 West End of the Courthouse 38 Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Station 42 Chamber of Commerce Building 49 Proclamation, October 11, 187 51 The New England Congregationalist Church 55 The Second Presbyterian Church 58 St. James Church 60 Booksellers Row 63 Residence of the Rt. Rev. Thomas Foley 65 The Water Tower 68 The Mahlon D. Ogden Home 72 Ruins of the E. B. McCagg Home 75 The Chicago Historical Society Building After the Fire 77 Chicago Not Yet All Destroyed, October 14, 1871 78 Introduction between THE early evening of Sunday, October 8, i8yi, and the early morning of Tuesday, October 10, fire destroyed practically every building in an area of three and a third square miles in the heart of Chicago. Property valued at $200,000,000 was turned into rubble, go,ooo people were left homeless, 300 lost their lives. The common designation, the "Great Chicago Fire'/ is understatement: it was the most destructive fire in American history. On that Sunday seventy-five years ago Chicago enjoyed a warm bright day. Yet most of its 335,000 inhabitants would have preferred less pleasant weather. For three months almost no rain had fallen, already the trees had shed most of their leaves, the lawns were parched, wells were dry. Chicago, moreover, was built of wood. Thoughtful residents knew what might hap- pen if a fire should get out of control. In the last few days they had had grim warnings. On Satur- day, September 30, the Burlington warehouse on 16th Street near State burned with a loss of more than $600,000. During the II next week there was a succession of fires, but not until Saturday, October y, did one turn out to be disastrous. Then, an hour or two before midnight, a planing mill on Canal Street between Jackson and Van Buren caught fire. Before the firemen reached the scene it was almost destroyed, and adjacent buildings were aflame. The entire department was called out. By intelligent, courageous work the men finally brought the fire under control, but not until it had consumed four square blocks and damaged property to the amount of $750,000. And that was not all: the fire had also taken a heavy toll of the department. Several pieces of apparatus were destroyed or put out of commission, and after sixteen hours of arduous, dangerous work, hardly more than half of the men were fit for duty. Thus the stage was set for tragedy when the O'Leary cowbam, at the rear of iff De Koven Street, caught fire about 8:45 on the 1 evening of Sunday, October 8. There is no need here for a de- tailed account of the way in which the fire got out of control. It is enough to say that the wooden city tinder-dry from drought, a strong southwest wind, an exhausted fire department, and con- siderable bungling combined to take the fire out of man's hands before it had burned two hours. The fire started on the West Side about three-eighths of a mile west of the South Branch of the Chicago River. Before midnight it had jumped across the river, and was moving rapidly in a northeasterly direction. By 1:30 on the morning of Monday, ^ere, as throughout this Introduction, I rely on H. A. Musham, "The Great Chicago Fire, October 8-10, 1871" Papers in Illinois History, 1940 (Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield, 1941). Although the word is badly overworked, "masterly" is the only adjective that fits this monograph. 12 October g, the courthouse and other buildings in the very heart of the business district were ablaze. By 2:30 it had spanned the river itself and was attacking the North Side fiercely. In another hour the waterworks at Chicago Avenue and Pine Street (now Michigan Avenue) was blazing so fiercely that the workmen on duty there were forced to abandon it. During most of Monday, October g, the fire ranged over the North Side, stveeping as far north as Fullerton Avenue (then the city limits) and wiping out sections which had escaped the night before. At the same time it completed the destruction of the business district. By late afternoon, however, it was almost burned out. Rain, commencing shortly before midnight, helped to put an end to the holocaust. The scene on Tuesday morning was one of almost complete desolation. With the exception of an unfinished building at La Salle and Monroe streets and a fortunate structure at Market and Randolph, the entire business district was gone. On the North Side only two houses were spared: one near Hubbard and Kings- bury streets, the other the home of Mahlon Ogden at Dearborn and White (now Walton), where the Newberry Library stands. In the much smaller burned area on the West Side a handful of buildings had escaped. Among them, by a grim joke, was the O'Leary cottage. The burnt area extended north and south for four and three-quarter miles, and had an average width of one mile. Within these limits, there were only smoking ruins. One phenomenon of the fire deserves special comment. In almost every letter written about it, in almost every recorded reminiscence, there is awed reference to the high wind that 13 hurled burning planks and fire brands through the air for hun- dreds of yards and sent walls of flame through whole blocks almost instantaneously. Colonel H. A. Musham has pointed out that at no time during the fire did the wind reach a velocity of more than thirty miles an hour, and that a wind of this force cannot lift large objects into the air and hurl them long dis- tances. The gale-like winds, in fact, were convection whirls, or "fire devils"—whirling masses of fire and superheated air—gen- erated by the fire itself. These, more than any other factor, accounted for the lightning-like spread of the flames. "They car- ried burning brands, sparks and masses of fire forward for dis- tances up to three-eighths of a mile" Colonel Musham writes. "The destruction of the city can be said to have been brought about by fire spilled progressively on it by these fire devils which started new fires far in advance of those from which they arose; these, assisted by showers of sparks and masses of superheated air, formed new centers of destruction, from which fire literally flowed in all directions, particularly to the north and northeast, which ceased only when there was nothing more to 2 burn': The fire over, the people of Chicago set out at once to allevi- ate the suffering of the victims. A temporary relief committee was organized, schools and churches were opened to the homeless, food and clothing were distributed.

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